The Group Photo Project/Transcript
WORK IN PROGRESS; NEEDS HUMAN REVIEW [ jazz music plays ] [ geese honking ] [ ducks quacking ] [ water splashes ] on today's show, bill and I are gonna do a tribute to benjamin franklin, I'm gonna show you some exercises and appliances you can wear to look thinner, dougie's gonna do something weird with his face, and then harold and I are gonna do a little bit of stream fishing. And now here's the reason we're all here and you're all there and everyone else is everywhere else -- my uncle, red green! Hi. Thank you very much. This week, I got some good news, I got some bad news. What's the bad news? Meet my nephew, harold. [ keyboard clacking ] [ engine chugging ] and now the good news. This week marks the 130th anniversary of the creation of the spincast fishing reel. Wow! And when you stop to think about it, every over-fished lake, river, and stream owes its present state to this marvelous invention. Wa-a-a! So, the question is, how are we gonna celebrate this momentous occasion? Now, moose thompson had an idea. He said, "why don't we put all the guys' names into a hat "and you pull a name out and whoever's name you get, you go give him a wedgie?" great idea. Not a lot to do with the spincasting, but I like it. Uncle red, how about an evening of entertainment, then, with the local theater company -- the possum players? No, harold. No, harold. Not a good idea to get actors and hunters together... Especially those actors. And these hunters. Instead, we're all gonna meet in the center of town, we're gonna hold up a spincast fishing rod, buzz is gonna fly over in his plane and take an aerial photograph. Well, what if somebody blinks? Well, we'll retouch the photograph, harold. We got to airbrush most of your teeth out anyway. [ engine chugging ] if you can't be with the plane you love, love the plane you're with. [ zither and guitar play ] ♪ oh, we had an earthquake late last night ♪ ♪ it shook the lodge, and gave us all a fright ♪ ♪ night ♪ ♪ a fright ♪ ♪ hit about 9 on the richter scale ♪ ♪ the scale ♪ ♪ bounced all the contents out of the minnow pail ♪ ♪ pail ♪ ♪ so, we went outside till the danger passed ♪ ♪ 'cause if the lodge goes down, it'll go down fast ♪ ♪ zippity ♪ ♪ but it wasn't an earthquake shakin' the ground ♪ ♪ ground ♪ ♪ it was a kid in a chevette with the bass turned up ♪ way beyond any sensible level. [ creak! Splash! ] all right. Here's the situation. You've just taken your wife out for dinner at one of those lovely "all-you-can-eat" places. Which, of course, is a direct challenge no real man could refuse. Absolutely. You got yourself up. You're on your way up there for your ninth plate of beef without having a leaf of salad yet. Your wife turns to you and says, "hey! Are you having more meat?!" what do you say? You say to her, "honey, I like the rare part. "nobody else is ordering beef, "so it has fallen on me "to single-handedly eat my way right through into the middle of that roast." or you could try, "people are starving in africa." that one worked for my parents. Oh, that's -- that's going for the jugular. That's a good one. Or you could say, uh, "I'm not just eating meat. I'm also having vegetables." I mean, horseradish is a vegetable, right, red? Sure is. So is gravy, I believe. Absolutely. Absolutely. And don't forget salt. Salt. You know... That's right there on the vegetable list in my book. Salt, yep. Or, you know, worst-case scenario, if she's still on your case, look at her and give her this face... And then say, "it's okay, honey. I'm not having any dessert." [ bounce! Bounce! ] "for sale -- antique hope chest. "hope you like it. Hope it's valuable. Hope to get $500." wa-a-a! Not a hope. [ ducks quacking ] now, with everybody getting ready for this, uh, aerial photo for the, uh, commemorating the invention of the spincast reel there, the beauty parlors and barber shops around possum lodge are jammed to the eyeballs. So, I thought I'd take today's "handyman corner" and show you how to do a complete beauty makeover using stuff you find right around your house. All right, uh, let's start with something for the ladies, uh, like doing your nails, for example. Get yourself a pizza box like this and, uh, trace your hand on there. And then punch out all of the fingernail tips there, and then all you have to do -- this is a real great time saver -- is you just, uh, put your hand inside the box, take some spray paint there, and just, uh, put that all on there. And it doesn't matter how -- you know, how you do it. [ chuckles ] I hope the other lodge members still respect me with, you know, painted fingernails. All right. Oh, uh, well, you have to have the back of your hand against the holes. This actually looks like I've been arrested and fingerprinted. Guys will respect me now for sure. But, you know, for you ladies, there's all kinds of tools right in the workshop you can use for beauty treatments. Uh, you could, uh, tweeze your own eyebrows... [ saw buzzes ] ...Shave your legs... Lay the makeup in there. Want pierced ears? Try a pop riveter. If you're having trouble fitting into that dress that you bought last fall, you don't need a girdle. Get yourself one of these tube socks and cut the toe out of that, and just slip that baby on there. You'll get a shape that'll get all kinds of attention. [ creak! ] it's coming. Almost got it. [ boing! Boing! Boing! Boing! Boing! ] come on. [ boing! Creak! ] there we go. And I'll tell you -- you're not just looking good, you're losing weight, 'cause there's no way you can eat food when you're wearing this type of a unit. And another thing is, you want to make sure your digestive system is tight as a drum. All right, now what about the men? What can they do to get themselves kind of gussied up for a fancy occasion? Well, basically, they shave and get a haircut. I don't even do that. I don't shave, myself. But when I have to go somewhere and look real good, like, uh, at funeral of somebody with money, what I'll do is, uh, cover up my beard with these, uh... Flesh-colored bandages. And I just camouflage the beard. Man, I look like jay leno. As far as the haircut goes, you know, the reason that a barber can charge you up to 7 bucks to cut your hair is 'cause he's learned how to cut every hair exactly the same length. But there's a cheap way that you can do that at home, even if your head isn't bowl-shaped. Okay, first thing you need is an old lamp. Take the cord off of it. [ electricity crackles ] and then, uh, get rid of the lamp so your wife doesn't ask any stupid questions. And then you want to take one of them light dimmers and hook that into the middle of the cord, and hook that all up, and I'll show you how that -- [ electricity crackling ] ... Works. All right, once you got that hooked up, plug her in and then attach the bare ends of the wires to your earlobes. Now, when I, uh, turn on the dimmer here, the electricity flows into the head of the victim -- uh, I should say, "the customer" -- making his hair stand right up on end, making it real easy to cut. You're gonna end up with a fella who's not only handsome, but handy. Watch this. [ crackle! Whoosh! ] not quite what I had in mind, but he's not gonna need a haircut for a while. Stay tuned. Coming up, bill has another negative experience with gravity. And then buzz shows harold what it's like at boot camp. I want to talk to all you middle-aged guys about how you feel tired all the time. I know what you're going through. Many's the time I sit in the living room there, listening to my wife talk, and all of a sudden, my leg will fall asleep. Or I'll be going up a flight of stairs and have to pull over into the slow lane to let the dog go by. And he's 17... Which in dog years is... Old man sedgwick. Just seems that, as the years pile up, the energy level goes down. Now, your doctor's gonna tell you it's the hours you keep or the food you eat or how much of it or not getting enough exercise, plus the fact that you've put on 75 pounds since the last time you did anything. But I say it's all in your mind. See, your mind has just sat there quietly for 40 years, watching your body do stuff like, uh, flip over the handlebars of your bike or take the fast way down from the roof... Or go... [ pencil snaps ] ...From picking up too much wallboard. And your mind is tired of taking in all that pain. So, one day, when your brain is asleep, like when you're watching reruns of "matlock" or something, your mind quietly tells your muscles to go to sleep or cramp up or something. And that exhaustion is just self-preservation. It's that simple. You should be happy that your body is too tired to do the things that you want to do, 'cause that tiredness is saving your life. Remember -- I'm pulling for you. We're all in this together. Well, this group photograph we're planning to take is turning into a portrait of disaster. Sometimes, I think the residents around here are one chromosome away from dragging their knuckles on the ground. How difficult can it be to tell them to show up on time and just stand in the middle of the street? Exactly. All they got to do is stand there and stare at the sky. They do it for an eclipse. And some of the guys are saying, "bring the plane in low so you can't see my bald spot." and others want us to delay it for a month so they can go on a diet, for gosh sakes. Plane's gonna be 1,000 feet up. No one's even gonna notice. What a bunch of vain idiots. Wa-a-a! Says the guy who spent 10 bucks on acne cream. I had a flare-up! Flare-up. So, I just told the fat ones to stand under the grocery-store awning. Grocery store's got a new awning? Well, yeah, see, the merchants realized their shops are gonna be in the picture, so now they're fixing their stores up. Oh, great. Well, it was until they saw the advertising potential. Now the funeral parlor put a great big sign on the roof -- "coffins -- priced to move." oh, boy. The worst was murray's leisure wear. 10-foot letters -- "men's and ladies' pants, half off." [ engine sputters ] well, what with picture day coming up, I thought we'd drop in and see our resident bush pilot/aerial photographer, buzz sherwood. Hey, buzz. Yo, red-man, how are you?! Good, good, good. Good to see you. Hey, haro-o-o-ld! [ harold grunts ] [ laughs ] oh, for crying out loud, harold, how much can that hurt? Gotcha. [ laughs ] I was asking harold. So, buzz, uh, you all set for the picture-taking thing? Oh, sure. Sure. Soon as we pass our safety inspection, we're in business. What safety inspection? Oh, man, the rule makers. The whole corrupt system, man -- they just want to tie my feet to the ground, you know? They pull these random checks, right? So that guys like me make sure our planes are safe. "safe"?! I mean, what is safe?! It's like, are we supposed to predict what's gonna fall off... Or not? [ splash! ] see?! Sheesh! Well, if they find something wr-- what am I saying? When they find something wrong with the plane, what happens then? [ gasps ] oh, man. The flight fuzz come down on you so hard, man. Well, then who are we gonna get to fly over possum lake and take our picture? Oh, oh, don't -- don't -- don't panic. Don't panic. Hey, your buddy buzz has everything under control, 'cause I've been working on beauty here. She's gonna pass, no problem. I even caulked up all them bullet holes. Well, you missed a whole bunch right there in the tail section. Oh, those are -- that's okay. Those are -- those are going-in holes. I can say that was, like, a hunting accident or something. It's the exit holes that make them nervous. And, uh -- and look. Look what I found. Look what I found, huh? Two more bolts to hold the propeller on. Now I got four out of five there. And -- and these things. Did you know these were called flaps? And...And you're supposed to oil them? I mean, I've just learned so much. And -- like the control panel. I put a battery behind it, right? And now it looks like it really works with lights and everything. It's just amazing. So, you think beauty's gonna pass this thing? Oh, no problem. I pumped out the pontoons and duct-taped the holes. It's gonna be great. And that'll fool the inspectors? No sweat. What if they ask you to fly her? Oh, well, they never do. 'cause that would mean they'd have to get in it and go up with me. [ laughs ] [ whoosh! ] uncle red? Uncle red, what's this deficiency in adults that makes them want to drink alcohol? Well, there's no deficiency, harold. It's a tradition, a ritual. Alcohol is a sign of friendship, you know, like... Baptism or installing a new pope or a playoff game. Wa-a-a! Well, personally, you know, I-I-I just don't think it's necessary. For instance, like, how come they need, like, alcohol at, like, a wedding? How come? Well, harold, without alcohol, a lot of weddings would never happen. You know, it's -- it's up to each person to know his own limit, you know? It's -- it's an individual who makes the decision. That's all. Well, I think a lot of the lodge members are making bad decisions -- every weekend. Well, harold, either they've got a disease that needs to be looked after or maybe they're trying to escape an unpleasant situation. Wa-a-a! I never thought of the lodge as an unpleasant situation. Only when you're here, harold. Wa-a-a! Well, don't you worry. I'm going back home in a few months. Want to give us a push there, harold? The beer store closes in an hour. Time for "adventures with bill." I've been reading the mail, so I was out flying a kite, of course. And, uh, bill decided to join me. Isn't that beautiful? Just such a simple thing up there, flying away. It's kind of magical. And bill's gonna whip out... Oh, a kite kit. Yeah, these are great. Looks like he got the childproof-lock bag, which is sensible. You don't want a kid, you know, opening up one of those and playing with a kite. Luckily, bill has a vasectomy kit in his other pocket. [ boing! ] oh, well, thank you, bill. Uh-oh. Yeah, "uh-oh" is right. Now what? You got another one of those kits in your, uh, kit there? Oh, that's fair enough. Gonna give me his. Oh, no, he has got another one. All right, all right, all right. Fair enough, fair enough. So, now, with these, you know, you got a little bit of assembly required. And, of course, we can put these together faster than most women can read the instructions. Bill's is kind of -- kind of a wild-looking thing, isn't it? Mine is norm-- what? Uh, bill? Aha! Get up. Now, that's odd. The wild -- the wild-looking thing is... Whoa! Unbelievable. But, you know, to me, the thing about wild kites is they shouldn't really be in captivity. There you go. Be free. Go, be free. Ohh! Fair's fair, bill. So, we decided to combine our efforts and make a super-duper, triple-triple-decker, 3-story -- yep, it's a beauty, it's a beauty, it's a beauty, it's a beauty. All right, bill, throw her up, throw her up, throw her up. Let her go, let her go. Oh. [ honk! ] oh. Oh, boy. Throw her up, throw her up. Let her go. Let her go. Oh. Oh. Gosh, that... All right, bill, bill, I'll take care of that one, okay? Oh, here -- now here's a kite kit. Look at -- look at all this. Look at this, look at this, look at this, look at this. Huh? What? Little bit of over-packaging there. Oh, I see. The kit is actually the box that it comes in. Well, now, that's smart. All right. Boy, this is a beauty. This is a beauty. This thing's -- this thing is really gonna fly. It's gonna fly. It's gonna... That's -- think that string's heavy enough? All right, all right, all right. Okay, bill. Throw her up. Throw her up. There she goes. Oh, man, look at her go. Look at her go. Wow. Look out, bill. It's coming back. Bill -- oh. Oh. Fair enough. He's fine. Oh, oh, oh. Up she goes. Big wind. Big wind. There she goes. Lot of lift in her. That's a 100-foot pine, and that's a 97-foot pine, and that's a 107-foot bill. And now it's a -- oh, a 100-foot bill, 90, 80, 70, 60. Okay, that's a sea-level bill there. Is he all right? Oh! Checking over the kite. Oh, there he goes. He's okay. We'll check his tail later. [ groans ] coming up, we got winston rothschild, the ultimate hoser, and harold's gonna show you how he colored this place mat from the possum lodge diner. It looked like that big group-aerial-photo thing was gonna be canceled. We got the date all -- and the time all nailed down and everything, but we got families feuding with other families, and they refuse to pose in the same picture. I got that covered, uncle red. I have got that covered. I have color-coded the downtown area. And look at this -- I put the potsons right here because they don't want to be near the richardsons, who I placed strategically over here, you see? Now, they're in front of the sims up here. 'cause you know why? They hate the tylers. Right there -- that's the tylers. But that's okay. That's gonna be okay 'cause what I've done is I put us, the green family, right in the center of town, right there at the crosswalk. Wa-a-a! And -- and the fredericks -- you know what I've done with the fredericks? Put them right there as a defense. Ask me why. Don't, 'cause I'll tell you. Because what I've done is I'm protecting the sims from the tylers, 'cause if they try to sneak up here and, you, know on the flank of the sims -- can't happen 'cause of those fredericks defense people. What about the richardsons, you ask? I tell you -- they're right here, and if they try the old quarterback-sneak play, what we do is we reverse our offense and we meet down here at the mailbox right downtown, right there. Wa-a-a! You can just feel the love in the community, can't you? [ splat! ] a lot of people around possum lake think this group-photo thing is a total waste of time and money. So, I thought we'd talk to winston rothschild here to get some of the entrepreneurial angles on the project. Well, you know, I've got a suggestion, just off the top of my hat, eh? Why don't you take the photo, laminate it... And make place mats out of it? You know, like for tables. Well, I don't know, winston. I think an aerial shot of possum lake's gonna make it hard on digestion. Yeah. And they'd be tough to clean. How do you tell the lake from the stain? Well, you know what my, uh, business guru and success mentor, anthony anthony, says, eh? "you got to seize every opportunity, you know, and increase business." well, all right, fine. Well, tell everybody how you're gonna use the town-photo opportunity to increase your business then. Well, uh, like a lot of folks owes me money, right? Yep. Dan gerlombi owes me 50 bucks for a job I done for him last spring, and, uh, well, the keelys still haven't paid up from last month. Oh, fine. Oh, and there's this big job for the saint germains that I done. I rescued a real expensive piece of jewelry for them. I mean, how hung over do you have to be to ralph your necklace right off? Well, I still don't understand how you're gonna get the people to pay up, winston. Oh, it's simple. Uh-huh. Like, I'm gonna go to the photo... Yeah. ...Dressed up in my work clothes, right? And when I see somebody who owes me money, I'm just gonna go over there and stand next to them. [ chuckles ] exactly. Yeah. Oh. And when they pay up, I'm gonna go over to my next outstanding account, eh? You wouldn't believe how fast these folks are gonna cough up the cash. Yeah, I'm guessing you'll get paid in full, huh? Oh, I might even do better than that, eh? People don't count money too good when their eyes are watering, eh? [ buzz! Buzz! ] and welcome to "the expert" portion of the show, where claiming to be an expert this week with my uncle, red, is mr. Dalton humphrey. Okay, here's the letter, and it's from a viewer in furrow, nova scotia. Wa-a-a! All right. Uh, "dear experts, how can I make sure that I have enough money set aside for retirement?" well, I'll tell you what I'm doing. Uh, I'm gonna retire at 65, so I'm just putting enough money away to last me, and I'm -- I'm gonna be fine as long as I die at 67. Well, maybe just never retire. Yeah, because what you do is you pick a job where there's no mandatory retirement age, you know, like, say, um, a politician. Yeah. Or a car thief. Got to -- got to -- got to save for a rainy day. Yeah, sure. Maybe that's a better route. Yeah, okay. No, you got to save. Make a sacrifice, you know? 'cause people want everything. They want food, and they want shelter, and they want clothing. You know, the thing you have to remember -- what my old man said. He said, "you know, you got to take your income, "set some aside. "some you live on. Then you save a certain percentage." I keep it to around 10%. Well, not everybody can save 10%, dalton. No, to live on. You save 90% of your income?! Well, sure. You know, you have to give up a few luxuries, like toothpaste or socks or stuff like that. And my daughter, uh, spends a bit. $400 for a blouse. Hmm. Huh! $400 for a blouse for my daughter. You have a daughter? I don't even have $400. [ creak! ] well, we all showed up for the aerial photo just as planned, but... It didn't go quite as well as we'd hoped that it would. Well, you couldn't have asked for a better day. Wa-a-a! Could have pushed for a better pilot, I think. Buzz's plane is not really equipped to fly with all that aerial-photograph equipment. Buzz's plane really isn't equipped to fly, period. That's very true. So, he borrowed a plane from, uh, ranger gord -- one of them water dive bombers. So, we're all standing there, squinting up at the sun, smiling. Buzz comes over, pulls the wrong lever, soaks us with 1,200 gallons of water. You know, I really didn't mind getting wet so much. It was just that red chemical they added to the water -- it really itches. It's fire retardant. Well, we don't have to worry about spontaneous human combustion, anyway. That was the bad news. The worse news is buzz had his finger over the lens. Complete waste of time. Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no. Did you not see the photo? Oh, it's cool. It looks great. There's like 1,000 angry, screaming people, you know, all covered in red liquid, running helter-skelter. Wa-a-a! Big pink finger, right in the middle. That does kind of capture the spirit of possum lodge. You know, I figured what we could do is sell the picture to one of those tabloid newspapers. "giant digit attacks townsfolk, bleeds on petrified populace." wa-a-a! Wa-a-a! They pay big bucks for pictures like that, you know, of strange mutants and aliens and elvis. Well, I guess your family album must be worth a fortune, huh? Oh, no, uncle red. I don't have that many pictures of you. [ screeching ] meeting time. Wa-a-a! If my wife is watching, I'll be coming straight home after the meeting. I'm bringing you a little anniversary gift. I got you that, uh, spincast fishing reel I've had my eye on for a month or so. I know how much you like nice things, and this one's a real beauty. I'll tell you what -- you wouldn't be embarrassed to lend this to anyone. And to the rest of you, thanks so much for watching. And on behalf of myself and captain harold liner, until next time, keep watching, and keep your stick on the ice. [ screeching ] [ indistinct conversations ] all rise. All: Quando omni flunkus, moritati. Red: If you'd like to become a member of possum lodge and you got 3 bucks to blow, you can either mail it to the address here on the screen or dial 1-800-ypossum.